Child Abuse in Utah

Claims

"[Utah] has one of the highest per capita rates of child abuse in the nation."
- Larry Hall, Stop Hurting My Children!, Sword of the Spirit Apologetics

"Social statistics from Utah, for example, show that places where Mormonism is strongest have higher rates of...child abuse...than the nation as a whole."
- James R. Spencer, Why I Love Mormons, but not Mormonism, Take a Stand! Ministries

Is Utah's rate higher than the national average?

Utah's rate is actually fairly close to the national average--a little higher in some years, a little lower in others.

Figure 1 shows the child abuse rates for Utah and the United States. Rates are the number of victims of substantiated abuse per 1,000 residents under age 18. In each year shown, Utah's rate is within 13% of the national average.

Figure 1. Child abuse rates for the United States and Utah, 1992-1998.

How does Utah's rate compare to the rest of the country?

Table 1 shows how Utah's rate compares to the rest of the states. A rank of 1 indicates the highest rate. The number following the rank indicates the number of states for which data is available in that year.

Table 1. State child abuse rates for the United States and Utah, and Utah's rank, 1996-2001.

Year

High

Average

Low

Utah

Rank

1996

40.9 AK

14.0

1.6 ND

12.6

29/48

1997

47.9 AK

12.8

2.0 PA

13.6

20/44

1998

37.1 AK

12.9

1.9 PA

11.4

26/50

2000

36.6 AK

11.9

1.7 PA

12.1

21/48

2001

84.1 AK

12.4

1.7 PA

14.0

16/50

Sources

All data is from the tables entitled "Child Abuse and Neglect Cases Reported and Investigated by State" in Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1995-2003. The Statistical Abstract did not report figures for 1999.